The Top 50 Movie Special Effects Shots

[Rutabaga]

I got this link in an email newsletter this morning and thought it was interesting enough to share with all my fellow geeks here. It's surprising to see the mix of movies on this list, you've got some very famous movies and then some definitely less famous (and perhaps more like infamous) ones there as well.

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/177951/top_50_movie_special_effects_shots.html

[Dasquian Belargic]

That number one shot of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park totally deserves to win. That whole movie is still really spectacular to watch.

[Cat X]

Any SFX list that misses the Matrix or Gollum arguing with himself in TTT is a crap list. And there are soem decidedly... odd thigns that made it.

Not a good list at all.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Gollum didn't look real though. He was obviously computer generated. Not that it wasn't a good computer generation, but there was no point when I was watching his scenes that I thought "This could be actually happening!"

Which scenes in the Matrix which you have put in there?

[Droo]

I disagree. Gollum looked very real, for a mutated humanoid main character, and that's the important part. The T-Rex is just a T-Rex, a flying car is just a flying car but when there's a wholly CGI humanoid in the foreground of a movie shot, it becomes very obvious. Look at Jar Jar Binks then look at Gollum. The difference in the range of expressions is astonishing, his movements are believeable too, but the reason why we still know he is not a real thing is because he looks a bit like us with the two arms, two legs and a head with two eyes, nose and mouth. Any difference from the norm is immediately noticeable, but he's supposed to be different from the norm, and the fact that he carries one of the big roles in an impressive supporting cast as an entirely CGI character is nothing short of a revelation in my eyes. The performance is thanks to Andy Serkis of course but the fact that the CGI for Gollum has not been mentioned here or the bullet time effects of The Matrix make this list highly questionable in my eyes.

[Cat X]

Gollum didn't look real though. He was obviously computer generated. Not that it wasn't a good computer generation, but there was no point when I was watching his scenes that I thought "This could be actually happening!"

Which scenes in the Matrix which you have put in there?

That's not what most other people say when present with Gollum. He was not perfect but the fact is that he was a convincing special effect the likes of which we had not seen - here was a computer arguing with itself and you could actually be sold it being real!. And there's a lot more in any LOTR movie that was a genuine advance in SFX, both CG and miniture that could be mentioned. MASSIVE in itself advanced CG crowds a decade. The way models and CG was blended seamlessly also was a real advance.

Matrix - Anything in Bullet time. While we have been well and truly overexposed to it now, at the time nothing like it had been seen, especially how well done it was. It was a very good bit of sideways thinking to achieve the effect.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Here's a comment on the article, which I assume is from the guy who wrote it, reasoning why neither was included:


Regarding bullet-time, I find it to be an unbelievable white elephant in terms of movies - the best use for it would be in documentaries. Sometimes something comes 'out of the lab' which is amazing but pointless in cinematic terms, and I'm afraid I am judging on whether an effect has limited use, since I feel that effects are there to help a storyteller tell a great yarn, not to be shoehorned in because they're 'cool'.

I went back over about ten minutes of Gollum footage but couldn't find one shot that I really 'bought' enough to include it. Serkis and Jackson took mo-cap characters to a new level in LOTR and Kong but that WOW moment never happened in either. That's not to diminish the achievement, as I love these movies, but the result you're looking for is the one that the cop blurts out when he sees the 'agent' leaping a rooftop to pursue Carrie-Ann Moss in The Matrix - "That's impossible!". And that's the benchmark.

[Droo]

I'm sorry, but this person is talking out of his rear with regards to Gollum. Not believeable to look at? And the plasticine dinosour is? Time and nostalgia are conflicting factors in his appraisal of what counts as a classic special effect. All special effects will lose some of their shine years later, that's just how it is, but what counts is how significant and impressive they were at the time and with relation to its impact on modern cinema. Gollum, the first truly believable wholly CGI character to grace the cinema screen in a live action film, a character who has plenty of screen time and is a significant part of the plot and who interacts on a completely realistic level with the other actors... what else would one want from such a special effect? I can understand what he's saying about what warrants a classic special effect but he completely contradicts himself with the exclusion of Gollum.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I liked the top 24 WORST special effects list that's in there. :D

[Cat X]

Here's a comment on the article, which I assume is from the guy who wrote it, reasoning why neither was included:


Regarding bullet-time, I find it to be an unbelievable white elephant in terms of movies - the best use for it would be in documentaries. Sometimes something comes 'out of the lab' which is amazing but pointless in cinematic terms, and I'm afraid I am judging on whether an effect has limited use, since I feel that effects are there to help a storyteller tell a great yarn, not to be shoehorned in because they're 'cool'.

I went back over about ten minutes of Gollum footage but couldn't find one shot that I really 'bought' enough to include it. Serkis and Jackson took mo-cap characters to a new level in LOTR and Kong but that WOW moment never happened in either. That's not to diminish the achievement, as I love these movies, but the result you're looking for is the one that the cop blurts out when he sees the 'agent' leaping a rooftop to pursue Carrie-Ann Moss in The Matrix - "That's impossible!". And that's the benchmark.

In other words, for no good reason at all, because the WOW moment was clearly there in TTT when a computer was arguing with itself, you could actually believe it and it was at a sheer technical level never even gotten close to being matched. Only King Kong has gotten anywhere near that one moment.

And the effect should be there to tell a story? WTF? What a moronic rationalisation. Newsflash - SFX isnt just there to tell a story, it's there to dazzle an audience as well and in The Matrix, ti certainly did.

So not only is he bad at picking SFX, he's bad at rationalising his list.

[Mandy with an I]

Bullet time has been done to death though. I like that they included a lot of old-school effects - anything done without a computer is way more awesome IMO if it's believable.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Maybe Gollum was a huge achievement, but for me it doesn't stand out as the big WOW moment in LOTR. I find the scenery and the establishing shots of places like Rivendell, Helms Deep, etc to be more visually stuning. Just a personal preference of course.

I find myself agreeing with what the guy said about how SFX should serve some purpose beyond just looking pretty. I think bullet time kind of did both anyway though, since it showed how Neo et al could defy the laws of gravity/physics/whatever whilst looking really cool.

[Charlotte Tur'enne]

Yeah, that top 50 list was a bit wonky, really. Some of stuff definetly was a big "wow" moment to me when I saw it, but honestly, does the T-rex need to be on there twice? The first time was huge, but from that point on it wasn't as breathtakingly impressive by any means.

Kinda nice to see some of the more subtle effects make the list, though. But yeah there's a few things I'm surprised to see didn't make the list as well.

:D And I'm with LD - the "WORST" list is hilarious. The mentioning of that stupid hyena scene from that exercist prequel made me actually cheer. lmao

[Crusader]

I am kind of disappointed that we do not find the judgement day sequence from Terminator 2 in this list. This scene is so convincing that I could not imagine the nuclear holocaust any other way.

[Morgan Evanar]

I would have picked the running with dinosaurs sequence instead. Further, the Matrix implementation of bullet time (especially Trinity's kick to escape) was revolutionary in the way the shot was designed. They used something like 50 cameras.

[Captain Untouchable]

They included the T-Rex, but not the Velociraptors? Personally, I found the latter to be more convincing (and scary) - I knew that the T-Rex was fake, but having the Velociraptor's breath condensing on the window before it opened the door (and all the interaction with cupboards, cooking equipment and what-not) totally taxed my disbelief. Sure, I was quite young when I watched it, but it was the Velociraptors that gave me nightmares, not he 'Rex.

I'm glad that Apollo 13 made the list. I was discussing it the other day after watching it, and the consensus was that while it isn't a breathtakingly fantastic piece of cinematography, it is a fantastically well put-together film. The characters aren't over-the-top, and very little was done to "modernise" them, and yet they were still compelling. The story was simple, but worked because it was near enough true. The cast is phenomenal, many of whom have gone on to be truely massive stars. And while the CGI isn't worlds ahead of its time, the special effects are done in such a way that it works: you're so absorbed in the story that you don't really notice. Not bad for something that's 13 years old.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I have to say that the Lt. Dan no-legs effect from Forrest Gump is INCREDIBLE and it blows my mind every time I see it.